This invention relates to new and useful improvements in animal traps. Conventional animal traps are either of the spring loaded jaw type or consist of a snare wire.
Jaw types are notoriously inhumane inasmuch as a kill is not ensured and snare traps also suffer from the same fault inasmuch as the tightening of the snare loop is dependent upon the force placed thereon by the animal caught therein.
Attempts have been made to combine the advantages of the snare type trap with a spring loaded mechansim to ensure that the snare loop is tightened as soon as the trap is sprung but these are relatively involved in construction and easily develop faults in operation particularly when used in extreme cold and snow conditions.
Furthermore such combination traps usually include a trigger mechanism which extends partly across the snare loop thus eliminating one of the principle advantages of the snare type trap namely unimpeded passage of the animal's head into the snare before the trap is sprung.